Yes, I do believe that the class he brought in last year was a top 20 class.
Stratton and Bole are very good, CC Watson was drafted by the Rangers, and I think he will be very good, Ben Bracewell will be a very good closer and he has already taken that mantle as a freshman and has performed very well, Chad Girodo is also a very good pitcher- he was a Louisville Slugger AA and will be starting tommorrow, I think. He throws strikes and can change speeds. Kendall Graveman has done OK, I think he is more of a middle reliever than a starter. The other pitchers are projects- Matt Lane, Jared Miller and then Kolby Byrd is a project as well.
I'm not a big fan of JUCO guys, and I never have been. If you're JUCO, you're JUCO for a reason. And even if you're a guy like Kaleb Barlow, I think you lose some ground compared to guys that go to the SEC as freshmen because of the overall difference in talent. We should recriut no more than one JUCO a year, and I think if Cohen made a mistake, it was recruiting so many JUCO's. Shepherd was drafted, mainly on potential. At the same time, I see why he brought in so many- I think he is trying to bridge the gap between Polk's guys, and next year's freshmen- many who are position players so that he won't have to play so many freshmen. Based on how the JUCO guys have done in general, I think he may have to start freshmen anyway. It is worth noting that there are only three JUCO signees in our current class that signed in November- one of which is a holdover from last year's class that had Tommy John surgery.
Now, for your second question- yes, I do think that he was the right guy for the job. The reason being is because he is a good recruiter- which we are already seeing, he is a guy that has not only won at UK, he has won at Northwestern State, he has brought in good assistants, and he knows the program which I think is a bonus. I do think he sometimes wants to win so badly and wants to leave such an impression that I think he himself sometimes presses too much. I don't think Polk helped him out by essentially telling his players to transfer if MSU hired Cohen- that was very unprofessional of Polk in my opinion. I do think that even now there is a culture clash between Cohen's aggressive style and Polk's everybody learn about baseball style. I also think he is a good coach. I have seen him make many moves that have helped us to win ballgames that people maybe don't talk about- like last night when he got on to Ogden and then he comes through with the game tying single. There have been plenty of times where we have taken an extra base and gotten it, but people by nature only talk about the guys that get thrown out or do something ridiculous. The only thing that really hasn't improved this year over last year has been the hitting. I honestly don't know why. Maybe we just have a lot of guys slumping- I've heard a lot of people talk about how we hit a ball hard at someone, and some of these players have hit before like Sneed and Duffy and they're struggling. That happens sometimes, and you have to believe that the law of averages are going to balance out at some point. I will say when Cohen took over, our hitting improved almost 10 points as a team from 2008 to 2009. It's really a mystery to me.
He is bringing in some players that I am very encouraged about next year- like Chase Luwallen, DeMarcus Henderson, Daryl Norris, CT Bradford, Cody Abraham, and Garrett Pitts. I also hope that we sign Jackson Posey and Hunter Renfroe- and I hope Renroe doesn't give us the finger. So, I do think that there is hope on the horizon in addition to the players that we already have. But it's really frustrating to be patient while we are waiting on these Polk and JUCO players to graduate. I'll say this- I am more optomistic about the future of MSU baseball right now than I was two years ago.
Cohen at UK liked to do things like bunt, hit and run and etc., and it's very hard for some of these players to do some of those things. I think we will see ore of that as he continues to coach here.
Remember when Lou Piniella was coaching the Tampa Bay Rays a few years ago? He struggled, but it wasn't because he was a bad manager. In fact, he goes to the Cubs after that and gets them to the playoffs. He struggled because he had bad players. It's the same thing with MSU right now. We have some players that can do some things, but are horrible at others. And so we end up with a lot of liabilities in the field and in the lineup. I was hoping for 30 wins this year, but I am not real encouraged about that right now. There are just too many holes- many of which Cohen inherited.
And I'll say this to- I have actually seen our team play in person, and we are much more enjoyable to watch to me than we were the past two seasons. I really got tired of Polk's "That's baseball" schtick. And I wish I had one of my best friends here posting to verify this, but everything that happened under Polk II's tenure, I predicted except for the CWS appearance in 2007 and the 05 SEC Tournament. We may not be good, but we are at least playing baseball the way it is supposed to be played. Maybe not well all the time, but we're doing things that make sense, and I feel like Cohen is at least trying to win. Polk really didn't care if we won or not at the end of his career.
Here's what I think will happen for the future of MSU baseball:
2010: We struggle have a losing season, get rid of more Polk players. We have another top 10 recruiting class.
2011: We start several freshmen and the pitchers are now Sophomore dominated. We improve. Recruits are skeptical after three straight losing seasons, we haul in a top 20 class though. We go to a regional.
2012: Pitchers are now juniors, Polk's players are almost entirely gone, position players are now So. dominated and we have a few freshmen at a couple of other positions. Young, but experienced. We make/ maybe host a regional. If we play really well maybe even make a SR.
2013: Cohen's first class are finally seniors, position playes are junior dominated, make a SR, maybe go to Omaha.
I think that's kind of the timeline we are looking at as a program right now. It sucks losing, though.
